How-To guide on setting up Mythnotify (callerid)

Overview

I had heard of this feature some time ago but since I hardly knew Linux anyway I thought better of it. But now that I'm comfortable with it, here are a few instructions on getting it up and running.

Since I have compiled from source, Mythnotify resides in the contrib directory starting with version Mythtv-0.13. For anyone that has installed Mythtv using mythtv-suite, this can be found here /usr/share/doc/mythtv-0.18.1/contrib.

This is a nice little feature that allows you to see who's calling you while you're watching LiveTV. It simply pops up a rectangular box that has the name and phone number along with other miscellaneous information. The OSD font and number of seconds can be changed in the mythfrontend setup. Here's how you setup Mythnotify.

Mythudprelay

These are the dependencies that are required for Mythnotify. Chances are they have already been installed on your system.

libxml2

libxslt

First we need to be in the mythudprelay directory, e.g.:

cd /home/mythtv/mythtv-0.15.1/contrib/mythnotify/mythudprelay

Once there we need to compile this feature

# make

Cidbcast

No dependencies are needed here. Change directory to cidbcast, e.g.:

cd /home/mythtv/mythtv-0.15.1/contrib/mythnotify/cidbcast

Compile this feature

# make

The one problem I had was trying to figure out how to make these two features startup at boot. It didn't seem to work in rc.local for some reason so I had to put on my thinking cap. What I came up with were two startup scripts that go into your Autostart folder of your desktop manager. That could be KDE or XfCE4 which is what I use. This is my path to Autostart.

cd /home/mythtv/Desktop/Autostart

Yours might be

cd /home/mythtv/.kde/Autostart

Let's go ahead and make a file called callerid.sh and place it in our Autostart folder.

Note: The modem that you use must have the correct AT command string. Notice the --init string below. This is what works for me. If you can't find your AT command sting then try mine to see if it works). Here is a link to a variety of modem command strings: http://modems.rosenet.net/init/ , or try here http://www.modemhelp.org/inits/ .

Remote-On/Off Setup

Now that we can turn on-off the CallerID feature with the remote control, we now need to put callerid.sh into our PATH. This allows us to execute callerid.sh from anywhere by just giving it the filename rather than the entire path. Also we will be creating our on-off script to work with irexec. (note: Please note that I am using a newer version of QT so qt-3.2 in the command below reflects that. You may be using qt-3.1 so make sure you know what version you're running to add to your PATH. Also note that my last entry is the Autostart folder of my home directory. This is where my callerid.sh resides. Adjust yours to reflect your callerid.sh PATH).

To add another directory(s) to your PATH let's edit a file in your home directory under mythtv called .bash_profile. Where it says

This changes your PATH permanently. Restart X for the effects to take place

Now we need to build our on-off script. You can name this what you like. I've named mine callerIDtoggle.sh. Place this somewhere like /usr/local/bin

callerIDtoggle.sh

#!/bin/bash
DAEMON=cidbcast
# Test to see if process is running first
if ps -ef|grep -v grep|grep $DAEMON
then
#if process is found, slay it
echo "$DAEMON is found, we now will slay it"
killall -9 $DAEMON
else
#if process is not found, do nothing.
echo "$DAEMON was not found, let's start it"
callerid.sh &
fi
exit

The last part to all of this is irexec. Before using this program, make sure it's running first. This could possibly be loaded into your rc.local file or your Autostart folder where mine is. This program will allow us to use our remote control to turn CallerID on and off, by way of our script, with just one button. The two files that we're after are .lircrc and lircrc(.lircrc maybe a symlink). These two files reside in your mythtv home directory. Just use your favorite text editor to make changes. Doesn't really matter where you put this in the file. Since I'm using the grey hauppauge remote, spare buttons are running out. I did have one available so I used the BLANK button for this. The info below will be added to both lircrc files.

The cidbcast program automatically defaults to com1, which is ttyS0. Make sure you have proper permissions set on ttyS0 in the /dev directory. If your using an internal modem this will default to another comport such as /dev/ttyS15 or possibly /dev/modem. If your having problems setting up your modem correctly use "./cidbcast --help" for more help. Once this has been all setup, give your computer a reboot to see if it works. You should see the TR(transmit receive) light come on, using an external modem, when your desktop splash screen comes up. This means the modem is ready to accept incoming calls.

Troubleshooting

I have an Agere/TRENDNet Modem that doesn't seem to follow the conventional output for caller ID. You can verify that you are getting data by running:

This will show you what data the modem is actually capturing and sending. In my case, cidbcast was unable to find the data in the caller id stream. Using Minicom, I found out the format of my caller id was:

DATE=0427
TIME=1153
NAME=SCHMOE,JOE
NMBR=3035551212

What is expected by cidbcast is:

DATE = 0427
TIME = 1153
NAME = SCHMOE,JOE
NMBR = 3035551212

I am not sure what the standard format is but a quick edit of the cidbcast.c to correct the fields: